The gift that keeps on giving, Salgado learned, is the simple act of kindness. Because oftentimes, when one person "pays it forward" — through something as mundane as a cup of coffee for a stranger or as grand as a large cash contribution — that one gift benefits many.

For Salgado, a Virginia photographer and mother of four, the drive that began in her childhood with so-called random acts of kindness — leaving meals for the homeless, for instance — peaked when as an adult she found it impossible to ignore the impulse to simply be kind. And so she put together a care package for a stranger she'd heard was struggling with cancer, and blogged about it.

Go ahead, try it: Do something nice for a stranger, then post something about it on your Facebook page. Or, tell your social network about it after someone spontaneously shows you an act of kindness. The logical and natural response, once everyone gets beyond Aawwweee, how sweet!, will be for people to fall in line with their own generous and often anonymous acts.

That is more or less how it began for Salgado. She did something nice, she blogged about it. But she also challenged her readers to do the same. "And it really took on its own life," she says.

Salgado, 35, wrote on the day of the Connecticut shootings about working with her four children to honor the victims in their own way. "I proposed we sew tiny art coloring books like we have so many times before, " she wrote, "...and tie some crayons up with them in packages and leave them at the park and library, places where kids could find the small gift."

Because many of the elementary school shooting victims loved making art, Salgado concluded, so other children might honor them by making new art.

Gretta Gloven can attest to the cosmic shift that happens when one is on the receiving end of random and unsolicited generosity. All it took was a stranger picking up a meal for Gloven to set a troubling week back on the right track.

"It was on one of those crazy mornings," recalls Gloven, vice president for marketing, communications and strategic partnerships at the Iliff School of Theology. "I stopped at Starbucks and not only did I order my morning coffee, I also ordered lunch. When I got to the drive-up (window), I was told I didn't need to pay because the person in front of me had just paid. She told me to 'pay it forward' ...The next day, when I went to Burger King, I did the same thing. It really changed my whole week. It really made me feel like, Wow, human beings do this for one another!'"

It follows that such selfless acts play roles large and small in major religions, says Jeffrey Mahan, Peck professor of religion and public communication at the Iliff School of Theology.

"Some denominations are more rigid about saying this is an expectation. With others, it's an encouragement," says Mahan, a former United Methodist minister. "The helpful thing is not so much what the exact configuration (of kindness) is. It's the reminder of the religious call to be a regular part of one's life, not just something that one does on a few special occasions."

At its simplest, the notion of paying it forward is a variation of The Golden Rule, Mahan says. And that is very much what Patience Salgado has taken away from her nondenominational mission as a "kindness worker," an endeavor she now realizes crystallized when she really needed to know and believe that selfless generosity exists in the world.

"I've learned that when you need love," Salgado says, "you've got to be love."

But even within faith-based discussions about the importance of charity, Mahan says there is a constant tension between the simple goodness of a kind act, and the inherent selfishness of doing something nice for someone else: I did this, so I get to feel good about it.

If there is a solution to that debate, he says, it is personal.

Whatever one calls it, charity or kindness or paying it forward, it "is about your relationship with the divine," Mahan says. "It's not about what other people might think about you because of it."

A surprise art gift, in Emilie's honor

When "Kindness Girl" Patience Salgado read about the young victims in Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, she was struck by the story of 6-year-old Emilie Parker, who reportedly loved art and drawing.

Salgado and her own children, ages 4, 7, 9 and 12, decided to honor Emilie Parker by making tiny art kits and leaving them for other children to find. "You are welcome to join us," she posted on her blog, KindnessGirl.com. Here's how:

1. Gather white and colored paper. Salgado used the fancy-stitch setting on her sewing machine to bind the paper into tiny art books. "Kids love to sew and the bright colors make the books so sweet," she wrote.

2. If you aren't crafty or don't have time, dollar stores and places like Target have great little crayon sets and drawing pads.

3. Attach the crayons and put the art kits in a basket and leave at places kids might find them. Playgrounds, parks, libraries, bus stops, the gym or music classes.

4. Leave a note with each kit saying, "In honor of Emilie. She loved to draw and share her art."

5. No more explanation is needed. But Salgado asks participants to post pictures on her "Guerrilla Goodness" Facebook page: Facebook.com/GuerrillaGoodness

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